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There was a certain innocence to those 1980 backyard adventures. It was at the time when VFX techniques were being developed and everything was new. You look at the final shot of Explorers back then and go "How did they do that?" Well...it was pure craft (fiber fill clouds glued to large crystal clear lexan sheets placed over over backlite graphics and shot from above). Today you just go "It was done in the computer". I also think that lack of knowledge of the old techniques hampers the younger generation using CGI. 100% of the challenge with the old techniques was "how do I make it look real?" which soon led to the adage that "you need to add detail that you would only notice if it was NOT there". So I submit that lighting miniatures with real lights better prepares you for accurate light set-ups for models in the computer. Real world experience automatically tells you what color the shadows should be on snow (they should have an element of blue in them) or how bright should the rim light be on a ship in space (you set the exposure for what is in the shadows of that rim light). Today, you just shove everything under and HDRI dome and move on. It is one thing to understand what is needed -- that is half the battle. But another thing to understand how to achieve those missing elements in the computer. That is where the knowledge of the old methods provide the best training. Why did fiber fill clouds work so well (they allowed self shadowing and depth and you can feather the edges differently between each motion control pass to get that natural wispy effect). Simple craft that really allowed innovation through experimentation rather quickly. I miss the old days. Don't forget Cocoon, Gremlins, Enemy Mine (great matte paintings), or Krull. All the Lucasfilm movies -- the Spielberg movies and the James Cameron movies. Dave

That's pretty cool. It reminds me an awful lot of a mix of the classic Flight of the Navigator and The Iron Giant - which is a good thing. I loved both films. @Macmangan Were you inspired by those? There's even the truck trailer UFO carrying scene:

I think your test is very close to realistic. My only issue with maybe the gravity or mass of the particles. The chunks appear to made of lighter material than concrete. Aside from that, it looks great.

EVERYONE STOP POSTING TO THIS THREAD UNTIL YOU HAVE SEEN THIS: (3) A Boy and His UFO teaser Trailer early test - YouTube OMG! And here we are looking at his wireframes and going "Gee...would have been great if not for the lack of quads in some areas". Was this all done by you or did you have any help (other than Gene Wilder 🙂 who is the only other name in the credits)? We will of course will want to know ALL the details: Shot 1: 1) Was the drone footage in the forest from a stock reel or did you shoot it yourself? 2) What software was used for the rotoscoping? Motion tracking? Shot 2: The bird that flies in front of the robot in the second shot when he is on the road has to be animated. I thought the road was just a background still until the bird flew by. That gave the shot some much needed life. Very well done. Who did the robot sound effects? Also very well done. Shot 3: Was fluid sim's used for the clouds or was that again stock footage? If stock footage, the masking must have been painful. Shot 4: Who is the little boy? Was he lifted from another movie? Shot 5: Masterful. I love the lightening. Matching the lightning to the lighting on the robot is very well done. Shot 6: More stock footage or did you go out and rent a truck? Match moving the robot to the truck is well done but yet believable because you added a slight rock to the whole rig. Not sure if the truck is CG as well....it looks too real. Modeling the chains over the robot must have been fun. Who did the overall sound mixing? Again, great balance, mood and very well done. In the face of this quality, we can forgive a few triangles in the modeling. Dave P.S. And there is more at his YouTube Channel: (3) the CRAFTINATOR - YouTube

That is all true, but it is Early Access. That technology JUST came out and I doubt it'd be really production ready until another year has passed. Just think about how long they patched UE4 and how many awesome features were added later on.

Yeh I found and do still find nodes hard to work with. Starting with Cycles nodes definitely helped, particularly with so many great resources available. I'm using Redshift at the moment and finding it much less intuitive.

Many years ago, when I had only used Lightwave for a couple of years, I read a bunch of books on lighting for photographers. That was probably the best thing I’ve learned for my 3d work over the years. Around the same time, Lightwave 6 was released, introducing GI, and realistic lighting was finally within reach. In the past year, I’ve felt almost the same way with Marvellous Designer. I can’t understand why I avoided it for so long. Working with cloth is just so much fun now. And it makes my scenes a hundred times better. (Well, maybe not a hundred : )